Ormstown Union Cemetery

Ormstown Union Cemetery, located a short distance outside of the Village of Ormstown, Quebec, was established in 1890 (the first burial was on Nov 8, 1890) to serve the needs of the protestant churches in that community. It is a large, well maintained, cemetery that is owned by a non-profit corporation and managed by a volunteer committee.

This name index and collection of pictures is the first step in a project to document the burials in this cemetery. Unfortunately the existing documentation is limited to ownership records and no burial records were kept until 1996. At the time that the cemetery was opened in 1890, there were 3 other protestant cemeteries in the Village of Ormstown (or Durham as it was called prior to 1890). Many of the stones and possibly some of the remains from two of these cemeteries, St-Paul's Presbyterian Burying Ground and
St-Johns Methodist Graveyard, were moved to the new Union cemetery but there are no existing records of who or what was moved. This makes the documentation of the Union Cemetery particularly difficult.

The layout of the cemetery is shown on the Lot map. The lots are designated by Range and Lot. The ranges are numbered 1 to 22 from the front (road end) to back and the lots are numbered 1 to 27 in 3 groups from left to right when facing from the front. The cemetery is divided into an "Old" section at the front with 12 ranges and a "new" section at the back with 10 additional ranges. Each lot is further divided into 6 burial plots labeled A to F from the south to the north. Originally full lots were sold to families but more recently half or third lots and individual plots have become the norm.

A complete set of photographs was taken in Autumn 2003 with some retakes in summer 2004. A complete documentation is being prepared from the photos and available church records but this will take some time to finish. When finished it will be available as a hardcopy book and a CDRom with all the pictures as well as a website showing the inscriptions (but not the photos).

In addition to the stones in the cemetery proper, there are 7 old stones that have been placed in the cemetery storage vault. These have all probably been moved from the older cemeteries and represent burials there. The reason that they have been placed in the vault is unknown and where they were in the cemetery prior to being stored away is also unknown. These stones are labeled "Vault-01" to "Vault-07".

Meanwhile this list showing all the names that appear on the stones has been extracted from the database. It lists the names alphabetically and the lot number for the stone bearing each name. Married women are listed with both their maiden name (where available) and their married name. Names of persons who were buried but do not have a monument inscription bearing their name are not included. Some names that appear on the stones may be spouses who are buried elsewhere or are still living.

If you have an interest in a particular name, contact the
webmaster for the particular information. A photo of a particular stone can be provided as an e-mail attachment but please limit your request to 1 or 2 stones. If you wish to visit the cemetery, check the Lot Map for guidance in locating a particular stone.